Tuesday for
You ... and from You
|
||||
|
||||
...please welcome
|
||||
Tuesday, December 20, 2011:
Hazel Grouse. Who Knew?
|
||||
 I
have been known to grouse. I whine, I complain. And
I know about grouse, those birds whose plural, as
with mouse or louse, ought to be "grice" in my book.
But I admit that today was the first time I
encountered Hazel Grouse, the common name for Tetrastes bonasia
or bonasa bonasia,
depending on whom you choose to ask. Being a writer,
I choose to use Hazel Grouse. What a perfect name
for a fussy character! Like the real bird, she'd be
shy and mostly a vegetarian. And she would be
found in abundance in the Northern Hemisphere. Rather
than calling ti-ti-ti or teh-teh-teh, however, she'd
say tut-tut-tut. She would dress in black, browns,
and grays, and she'd be apt to
cast a disapproving eye. Oh, Hazel, where's your
holiday spirit? I promise I won't serve you for
dinner.BACK TO TOP |
||||
Tuesday, December 13, 2011: Where Is Red Fox? |
||||
|
|
||||
Tuesday, December 6, 2011:
Rudolph the Caribou?
|
||||
|
|
||||
Tuesday, November 29, 2011:
Feasting on Cranberries
|
||||
|
|
||||
Tuesday, November 22,
2011: With Regard to Roaches
|
||||
 I
do have reluctant respect for the American cockroach
(Periplaneta americana).
Fossil records show that cockroaches (of which there
are now thousands of species worldwide) have been
around at least 300 million years. They've evolved
into highly successful organisms. They are the fastest
of all land insects and can run 50 times their body
length in one second (no wonder it's hard to catch
them). These creatures also seem to be able to
manufacture their own beta-carotene (for eye health
and other functions); we don't yet know of any other
animals with this ability. Yes, they do spread
disease, usually causing digestive illness. American
cockroaches are not native to America. It is likely
that they came to the American colonies from Africa.
On slave ships? I wouldn't be surprised. |
||||
Tuesday, November 15, 2011: Sun! |
||||
|
|
||||
Tuesday, November 8,
2011: Saluting the Sandpiper
|
||||
|
|
||||
Tuesday, November 1, 2011: A
Thousand Legs?
|
||||
 Today is 11111, which reminds me of
millipedes, those many-legged arthropods that look
like armored worms. "Millipede" does come from Latin
meaning "one thousand feet," but the 10,000 or so
species of millipedes have between 36 and 750 legs.
They thrive in a moist environment, often burrow under
damp earth, and usually eat decaying plant matter.
Millipedes don't bite or sting us. They don't carry
disease. They don't infest our food or clothing,
although they do sometimes wander into our houses. You
can get up close and personal with a millipede.
They've been around relatively unchanged for at least
420 million years. Sweet! |
||||
Tuesday, October 25, 2011: Kudzu
|
||||
|
|
||||
Tuesday, October 18,
2011: What's Eating You?
|
||||
 Green bottle flies (Phaenicia
sericata or Lucilia sericata)
both eat and lay their eggs in decomposing animal
matter. Their larvae—or maggots—grow to full size in
2-10 days, then drop into the soil before pupating
into adult flies. But some maggots of this fly have
helped to save lives, because they can eat dead tissue
without harm to living tissue. Hence MDT—maggot
debridement therapy. In some places, including
hospitals in the U.S., doctors use maggots to separate
out and eat the necrotic (dead) tissue in a wound,
decreasing the chances of infection and allowing
healthy tissue to form more easily. Sound disgusting?
Well, yes. But MDT can be an effective way to treat
wounds that don't respond to more conventional
methods. Thank you, maggots. |
||||
Tuesday, October 11, 2011:
Finally!
|
||||
|
|
||||
Tuesday, October 4, 2011:
Peanut the Pony
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
  Cranes of the
erector set variety are common in my neck of the
woods. Not so the Sarus Crane (Grus antigone), which is the
tallest flying bird in the world. This picture shows
one bent in half, feeding next to her chick.
According to savingcranes.org, Sarus Cranes
can be nearly six feet tall, with an eight-foot
wingspan. There are only about 15,000-20,000 left in
the wild, most of them in the wetlands of India.
They "dance," by flapping their wings, running,
bowing, and tossing sticks in the air. Mated pairs
often coordinate complex calls, usually with their
beaks arched toward the sky. Piling up reeds and
other materials, they build nests six feet wide and
nearly three feet high. They can't erect a six-story
building. Still, they are definitely my kind
of crane.
|
||||
|
||||
 I am posting this Tuesday page early,
which reminds me of the old English adage: "The
early bird catches (originally "catcheth") the
worm." When I think of early birds and worms, I
often think of robins, like the fellow in this
picture. The American Robin (Turdus
migratorius), of which there are at least 300 million, is
one of the earliest of bird species to lay its eggs
in the spring. It feeds its nestlings on soft-bodied
creatures, including worms. And it hunts for worms
in the morning. However, about 60% of a robin's diet
usually consists of fruits and berries, which the
birds hunt for later in the day. One favorite berry
is intoxicating. So I'm wondering: Does the late
bird catch a headache? |
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
 American lobsters
(Homarus
americanus) give new meaning to the phrase "mind your Ps
and Qs." Male lobsters pee at each other during
fights. The losing lobster remembers the chemical
signals in the urine of the winning lobster and will
likely not challenge the winner any time soon.
Female lobsters are attracted to the winning lobster
and they, too, send a urinary signal. This one
means, "I'm yours." Once she senses that he got the
message, the female enters the den of her chosen
male. She molts her hard outer shell. They mate
carefully. She stays sheltered with him for about a
week while the new shell hardens. This
behavior is also true for European lobsters (Homarus gammarus) and perhaps for
all of losterkind. This kind of peeing contest does
not seem limited to lobsters, however. Enough said.
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
 The New York Botanical Garden is a
home-away-from-home for wild blueberries that
researchers call an "extreme superfruit." These
berries are native to remote tropical regions in
Mexico and Central and South America. Two of the
five species tested—Cavendishia grandifolia and Anthopterus
wardii—contain
huge amounts of antioxidants, lots more than their
healthful and delicious "highbush" blueberry cousins
that are sold commercially in the U.S. The details
are available in the Journal of Agricultural and
Food Chemistry and through PubMed. Antioxidants
help the human body ward off cancers, heart disease,
and Alzheimer's. Blueberries prevent oatmeal from
being boring. Hail to thee (with spoon raised), blue
superfruit!
[Photo by Paola
Pedraza-Peñalosa]BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 The carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua) has been
cultivated for thousands of years and is still used
as a food source. The ripe seedpod tastes sweet and
sort of like chocolate. Is carat (or karat), the
unit of weight for gemstones, based on an ancient
system of weighing gems against carob seeds? The
standard carat is now 200mg. In a recent
test,
the average weight of a carob seed from female trees
is 200.5mg. Here's the catch: Carob seeds vary in
weight as much as seeds from other members of the
legume family. Why use carob seeds? The test also
showed that people can discriminate tiny differences
in carob seed weight by sight and can easily collect
seeds of essentially the same weight. Carob seeds
were readily available the Mediterranean and Middle
East and a convenient size for the one-carat
diamonds that were likely traded in ancient times.BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 In honor of July Fourth, here's Haliaeetus
leucocephalus—the bald eagle, which
is not bald. The name comes
from a word meaning "white." Before the Continental
Congress adjourned on July 4, 1776, it assigned
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson
the task of creating "a device for a seal for the United States of
America." Congress wanted to show the world that we
were a sovereign nation. It took six more years and
several committees (Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson
gave up on the task) before the Great Seal of the
United States was approved on June 20, 1782. For a
ton of detail on the story, read The
Eagle and the Shield by Richard S. Patterson. The Great Seal is still used on
official government documents 2,000-3,000 times a
year. And the bald eagle, once reduced to a few
hundred mating pairs in the U.S., is now
thriving. BACK TO TOP
|
||||
|
||||
 Pygmy marmosets (Callithrix
pygmaea) in 125 words or less. Here
goes. Adults are about 5 inches long and weigh about 4
ounces, making pygmy marmosets the smallest true
monkey. They live in the forests of the Upper Amazon
basin east of the Andes. They run like squirrels,
roost in trees at night, often give birth to twins,
and have claw-like nails. Using their sharp upper and
lower teeth, they gnaw on trees and eat the sappy gum
the tree exudes. Grasshoppers are a favorite delicacy.
They use grooming as a way to bond with other group
members, and they mate for life. They mark territory
with scent glands and communicate with high-pitched
sounds. And they are cute!BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 It's warm. It's wet. It's
black fly time. These little critters (also called
gnats) swarm around people and animals, and bite,
bite, bite. Only the adult females go for blood. The
adult males stick with nectar. Black flies stretch and
cut your skin, then feed on blood from ruptured
capillaries. Their bites itch like crazy! Black flies
swarm mostly around dusk and dawn, and are attracted
to dark clothing and the carbon dioxide in your
breath. So don't breathe. Home remedies for black fly
bites include witch hazel, aloe vera, and sliced
onion. While you're trying not to scratch, watch this
animated video
set to a 1949 song about the annual black fly plague.BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 Hagfish aren't fish. They are long and
wormlike, but they aren't eels. They have a skull, but
no vertebrae. They've been around in our oceans about
550 million years, and they do one thing exceptionally
well. They slime. When attacked or under stress,
hagfish secrete a mucus-and-fiber goo that mixes with
water to form an elastic gunk capable of clogging the
gills of predator fish. A tablespoon of hagfish goo
turns into a quart of hagfish gunk. After the threat
is gone, the hagfish contorts itself into a knot and
slides the gunk off its body. Researchers at Canada's
University of Guelph are studying the amazing
properties of hagfish slime. They think it might be as
strong as spider silk. This video
gives you the basics.BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 In 1910 there were about 500,000
white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the U.S., which had
about 92 million residents. In 2010 there were
more than 20 million deer for about 281 million
residents. Quick (semi-accurate) math: back then, one
deer for every 184 residents; now, one deer for every
14 residents. Deer seem to be everywhere, eating
gardens and ending up as roadkill. Bad for deer and
bad for us, particularly as people fall ill to Lyme
Disease from deer ticks. What to do? When a
white-tailed doe is alarmed, she often raises her tail
as she flees, making it easier for her fawns to follow
the white underside. But we have to come up with a
better solution for the deer-people imbalance.
"High-tailing" isn't an option.BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
|
The
sacred ibis eats freshwater snails that carry a parasitic
worm causing schistosomiasis
(also called bilharzia). This disease infects more
than 200 million people. Here's how. The worm leaves
its snail host and penetrates human skin in contact
with water contaminated by human urine and feces. The
worm then lays eggs that damage the person's liver,
lungs, intestines, and bladder. When if the waste from
these people reaches freshwater sources again, the
eggs can enter the snails. It's a vicious cycle that
the ibis does its best to stop. Thanks!
|
||||
|
||||
 Three
paragraphs
into
writing
my
latest
book,
I
discovered that my character had tended his "sturdy
jade plant" for fifty years. Lucky guy. A jade plant (Crassula ovata) can live at least that
long. It's a hardy succulent that thrives in a sunny
spot, well-drained soil (let the soil dry out between
waterings), and moderate temperatures. Jades are easy
to propagate, are popular as bonsai, and will reward
careful tending with small white or pink flowers. Even
if your jade never blooms, you can enjoy it for
decades. My imaginary character does. So does my real
family.BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
Sloths
eat the leaves, fruits, and tender shoots of the
trees they inhabit. Which reminds me to thank the
comma. "Eats shoots and leaves"—that's the sloth.
Then there's: "Eats shoots, and leaves"—a wandering
panda? And: "Eats, shoots, and leaves"—the dinner
guest I'd avoid!
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
 Stop for a while on a warm, sunny day in
almost any coniferous forest in North America, and you're
apt to see this creature. Neotamias minimus, or
"least chipmunk," is the smallest chipmunk on the
continent. A mature member of this species weighs only
about 2.5 ounces. The least chipmunk retreats to an
underground burrow in the fall and goes into
semi-hibernation. By mid-March or so, it moves into summer
quarters above ground and is fully active. The
International Union for Conservation of Nature puts least
chipmunks in the Least Concern category, meaning that they
don't seem to be at any risk of extinction. That makes me
happy…to say the least!BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 Humans
have taken such a strong liking to tulips that, at one
point in Dutch history, a single tulip bulb was worth
about as much as a mansion. These highly prized flowers
likely arrived in the Netherlands in the late 1500s from
the Ottoman Empire, where tulips were also very popular.
Starting with about a hundred native species from arid
regions of Asia, Africa, and southern Europe, there are
now more than three thousand cultivated varieties
(cultivars). Tulips are perennial, bulb-based angiosperms,
meaning that they reproduce sexually, using pollination
(pollen=sperm). This can result in a great variety of
offspring. Tulip growing is a huge industry, particularly
in the Netherlands, with about three billion tulip bulbs
produced each year. What is it with tulips? Click HERE
to read about "the botany of desire."BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 There's a parasite that makes grasshoppers
and crickets jump into the water and likely drown. I kid
you not, even if it's nearly April's Fools Day. The doomed
insect probably drinks water infested with the microscopic
larvae of a certain hairworm Spindochordodes tellinii. The hairworm
grows inside, eating and eating, until it's several times
longer than its host. When the hairworm is mature and
ready to mate, it releases proteins that alter signals in
the insect's brain. Instead of avoiding water, the insect
hops in. The hairworm exits through the insect's rear and
swims off to find a mate—one more phase in the lifecycle
of the parasite, the end of the road for its host. It's a
hair(worm)-raising story.BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 Researchers
at the University of North Carolina (UNC) are trying to
understand how hatchling loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta)
know which way to swim to reach the Sargasso Sea where
they can feed, hide out, and grow. These turtles seem to
rely at least in part on the Earth's magnetic field. Like
many other marine animals, they can detect latitude—the
north-south directions measuring how close they are to the
poles. Recent findings seem to show that these turtles can
also detect longitude—where they are in an east-west
direction. Click HERE
for pictures, maps, and easy-to-read turtle info from UNC.BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 …a
four-leaf clover that I overlooked before. It's easy to
overlook this four-leaf variation of three-leaved
(trifoliate) white clover (the clover's flower is mostly
white) or trifolium repens. According to
estimates, you'd find one four-leafer for every 10,000
three-leaf clovers growing naturally. This rare find is
supposed to bring you good luck. Scientists at the
University of Georgia have identified a gene that controls
the number of leaves white clover will have, so who knows
where that will lead us one day. White clover is one of
several varieties designated as a shamrock (a word that
comes from the Irish for "little clover"), and has been
introduced as a highly nutritious pasture crop in most
parts of the globe. That's lucky enough for me.BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
||||
 If you snooze you lose? Not so with American black bears (Ursus americanus), many of which aren't black at all, but brown or cream-colored. While "sleeping" away winter, nearly immobile for months, they maintain muscle mass and bone density. We'd like to know how. A new study shows that these bears slow their heart rate and breathing a lot. But body temperature remains within about 12 degrees F. of summer levels. Is this a clue? Click HERE for details. BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
In honor of George
Washington's birth—probably on this day—in 1732, our guest
star is Prunus avium, the sweet cherry. The
story goes that little George destroyed his father's
prized cherry tree and then owned up to his mistake.
People have been eating wild cherries since the Bronze
Age and cultivating cherry trees for more than 2,000
years. The fruit of a cherry tree is edible—and how!—but
the leaves, stems, and seeds (inside the cherry "stone")
are toxic.
BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
|
Let's celebrate the
day after Valentine's Day with praise to the Theobroma
cacao tree, from which we get chocolate. Theobroma
means "food of the gods"—no surprise to chocolate
lovers. These trees are native to Mexico, and to
Central and South America. They've been cultivated for
about 3,000 years. Cacao beans are bitter and have to
be fermented for a sweeter flavor. Click HERE
for unusual recipes. Cacao has medicinal purposes,
too, but the theobromine in chocolate is harmful to
cats and dogs.
|
||||
|
||||
 Some fish in the coldest parts of planet Earth survive in seawater that is below the freezing point of their blood. Like this Antarctic icefish, they have "antifreeze" glycoproteins in their bloodstream. The compound binds to the surface of ice crystals and inhibits their potentially fatal growth. I won't pretend to understand how this works. I'll put on a sweater and admire from afar. BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 Some deep-sea sponges turn themselves into "fiber-optic lamps." They attract light-emitting organisms and then transmit that light through hairlike glass fibers. There's a ton about this creature in cyberspace. My Animal Angles column, plus more, is on the Web courtesy of Cricket Connections. Scientist Joanna Aizenberg studies glass sponges and similar animals, and her research is all over the Web. For some amazing pictures, see her Web site at Harvard University. BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 These pups from the Ft. Wayne Children's Zoo
are dingoes. They are considered a subspecies of wolves
and are found in the wild in Australia and Southeast Asia.
Dingoes howl and sort of purr. They can move their heads
in almost a complete circle and have a distinctive skull.
Dingoes can breed with dogs, but produce only one litter a
year. European settlers tried to keep dingoes from
pasturelands in Australia by erecting a fence over 3,000
miles long. Success? That's up for debate. In any case,
wild dingoes are now classified as vulnerable.BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 This beetle detects
forest fires through microscopic infrared sensors in
the “armpits” of its middle pair of six legs. The
beetle (Melanophila acuminata) makes a beeline
for the fire to lay eggs in a scorched but still-alive
tree, the ideal place for its larvae to thrive. We
humans are trying to devise a similar infrared sensor,
although not for laying eggs.
BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 East African chimpanzees turn to this Aspilia plant (a relative of sunflowers) when they are feeling ill. They roll up the leaves and swallow them whole. The hairy leaves trap parasitic worms in the chimp’s guts and the worms are then expelled in dung. This plant also contains a compound (thiarubrine-A) that fights infection. Chimps aren't the only ones who use Aspilia to treat ailments. People do, too. BACK TO TOP |
||||
|
||||
 Our first guest
stars this year are two damselflies, close cousins of
dragonflies. My son, Ben, snapped this picture at
sunset along Mattawoman Creek, a tributary of the
Potomac River near Washington, DC. These damselflies
landed on the wheel of his boat to form a mating wheel
of their own (with the male above, female below).Probably everything you would ever want to know about dragonflies and damselflies can be found in Dragonflies: Behavior and Ecology of Odonata, by Philip S. Corbet. A good place to start on the Web is with the Odonata Information Network. Enjoy! BACK TO TOP |
||||
 |
|
Today's
guest star balances the foggy, gray weather in
Portland this morning. This sunflower (Helianthus annus)
is actually composed of many smaller flowers joined in
a single base. The pattern and placement of these
florets yield 
Gulls
swooped and soared, flapped and screeched, and demanded
my attention during a recent retreat on the Oregon
coast. But what really got my attention was the absence
of my favorite shorebird, the western sandpiper (Calidris mauri).
There are millions of these little birds along the coast
of Western North America—and along the Atlantic and Gulf
coasts, too—eating their fill of insects, small
crustaceans, and marine worms. Western sandpipers
migrate to Alaska to breed on the tundra, where the male
makes potential nests and the female chooses the nest
she prefers. The flock that flies away will return—so
here's to another time at the beach when I'll see my
favorite shorebird again.
Spending
decades in the Washington, D.C., area, I saw kudzu
draped over trees and telephone lines, and invading my
backyard. Kudzu to me was the Frankenstein's monster
of the pea family, a vine that seemed to grow an inch
every second. I had nothing good to say about kudzu,
which is native to Japan and parts of China. But
there's more to kudzu than I thought. We use kudzu to
treat alcoholism, migraines, vertigo, and other
ailments. It's been used as fodder, in soil
conservation, and basketry. It's brewed as a tea and
made into jelly. And whose fault is it that kudzu has
taken over so much of the southeastern U.S? Don't
blame the plant.
This
Tuesday's guest star is late, late, late for a very i
These
past few days have been mournful ones for a friend and
her family whose pony, Peanut, died suddenly. The bond
between people and ponies has been a strong and
honored one for generations, a bond that, at its best,
can help both species to thrive. It's also a bond
that, in the harsh conditions of Scotland's Shetland
Islands a hundred years ago, helped both species to
survive. The death of beloved pony is hard to bear.
May Peanut's memory be for a blessing.
Locomotion
doesn't mean "crazy way to move," but isn't kangaroo
locomotion a "loco" way to get from one place to
another? Not so for the red kangaroo (Macropus
rufus), the world's largest surviving marsupial.
When walking, red kangaroos use their forelegs and
tail to balance themselves while they swing their hind
legs forward. But they are built to hop, with their
hind legs spring-loaded with tendons and calf muscles,
and 80 percent of their total muscle massed around
their pelvis. Unlike other species of kangaroo, red
kangaroos head toward the open plain, rather than a
forested area, and depend on speed (up to about 35
mph) to avoid predators. They don't expend as much
energy moving this fast as other animals their size
would. Way to go, kangas!
Caenorhabditis elegans 
When Washington State's
Mount St. Helens volcano blew her top in 1980, she
killed the Roosevelt elk that grazed on her flanks.
But the elk population soon returned, foraging on
re-sprouting vegetation. 
Here's a shout out to Harry T., an LA
guy who used to adore ancient Egypt. Harry knows the
sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus)
was venerated as a symbol of the Egyptian god, Thoth.
Does he know ibises still save us from disease? 
Those
fierce fire ants (
Illustrator/author
A
three-toed sloth might have a hundred moths living in
its fur. These coprophagous moths hitch a ride down to
the ground about once a week when the sloth digs a
hole to defecate. They lay eggs in the dung and return
to their 
Vulnerable? These "top dogs" of the sea?
These finely tuned hunters that can detect the
electrical pulse emitted by your heart? Yup. The
International Union of Conservation of Nature
classifies them as vulnerable—likely to become
endangered unless circumstances threatening survival
and reproduction improve. Great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) start life
swimming away from their mother so she doesn't eat
them. Many don't survive to adulthood. Those that
aren't eaten by other marine creatures are in danger
of being caught by humans especially for their jaws or
fins. They get tangled in longlines and nets of
commercial fisheries. Slow to reproduce and naturally
scarce, great white sharks are more in danger from us
than we are from them.
